LISA DAFTARI: This Purim, we are all targets of the Iranian regime

Every twelvemonth astir this time, Jews work the past Scroll of Esther and retrieve a Persian courtier named Haman who plotted "to destroy, to termination and to annihilate each the Jews" of the empire successful a azygous day. The communicative feels little similar distant past and much similar a chilling parallel to our contiguous reality, because, erstwhile again, a authorities successful Persia — today’s Islamic Republic successful Iran — openly dreams of annihilation and domination, with Jews arsenic a cardinal people but acold from the lone ones.

The vacation of Purim is often presented arsenic a children’s communicative of costumes and noisemakers, but astatine its halfway is simply a governmental conflict betwixt bully and evil. A almighty ideologue identifies a radical arsenic an intolerable obstacle to his vision, secures authorities powerfulness down his hatred and issues a bureaucratic decease sentence. It takes courage, unity and a willingness to combat backmost to halt this brutal plot. Replace scroll and signet ringing with rockets and proxies, and you person the worldview of today’s Iranian authorities toward Israel, the United States and now, respective neighboring Persian Gulf States.

A antheral wears a headdress with the slogan "Make Iran large again" successful Berlin, Germany, connected Feb. 28, 2026. (Christophe Gateau/picture confederation via Getty Images)

When Hamas stormed Israeli communities connected Oct. 7, murdering, raping and kidnapping civilians, it did not enactment successful an ideological vacuum. Hamas has agelong relied connected Iran’s authorities for training, backing and supplying weapons.

The panic radical sits wrong a wider "axis of resistance" Tehran has painstakingly built astir Israel and crossed the region. Whether oregon not Tehran signed disconnected connected the nonstop timing, the authorities has spent decades forging a determination "ring of fire," including Hamas successful Gaza, Hezbollah successful Lebanon, militias successful Syria and Iraq, the Houthis successful Yemen, explicitly to marque bully connected its committedness that Israel is simply a "cancerous tumor" to beryllium removed and that American powerfulness successful the Middle East indispensable beryllium driven out.

But successful the 21st century, the Iran regime’s warfare is not lone against Jews and not lone fought with rockets and drones. It is fought with code, cameras and cautiously crafted narratives aimed astatine Israelis, Arabs, Americans, Europeans, dissident Iranians and anyone who stands successful the mode of the regime’s revolutionary project. The authorities has developed a blase power apparatus that uses botnets, fake personas and societal media influencers to signifier however planetary publics recognize the struggle and however escaped societies spot themselves.

Jewish men work the Scroll of Esther arsenic they observe Purim successful an underground parking store arsenic a precaution against imaginable Iranian rocket attacks, successful Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 2, 2026. (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Photo)

Investigations person exposed networks of inauthentic accounts connected X, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram pushing divisive, demoralizing contented astatine scale. In 1 documented campaign, bots flooded Hebrew‑language sermon with tens of thousands of posts successful nether 2 days, amplifying interior Israeli divisions and sowing panic astir the destiny of hostages. Other operations person impersonated Israelis, Americans and Europeans online, pushing narratives that telephone for Western retreat, civilian struggle and the abandonment of allies from Israel to Ukraine.

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This is not the random trolling we’ve seen for years. It is state‑directed accusation warfare intended to execute strategical goals, including to weaken Israeli morale, to crush the Iranian opposition, to fracture Western support, and to invert unfortunate and aggressor successful the eyes of the world. When regime‑linked operations amplify incendiary contented astir "Zionist control," repackage anti‑Jewish conspiracy theories arsenic anti‑Israel "anti‑colonialism," and simultaneously smear Iranian dissidents arsenic overseas agents, they are targeting anyone who challenges Tehran’s ambitions.

Iranians pain American flags during an anti-U.S. objection extracurricular the erstwhile U.S. embassy office successful Tehran connected May 9, 2018. ( Ali Mohammadi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The West should admit however a hostile authorities is utilizing each tool, including panic proxies abroad, repression astatine home, field activism successful the West, and algorithm‑hacking online to delegitimize antiauthoritarian allies and normalize unit against minorities and dissidents. The aforesaid authorities that arms Hamas and Hezbollah besides guns down women removing their headscarves successful Tehran, supplies drones to Russia for usage successful Ukraine and threatens Persian Gulf Arab states that situation to enactment openly with Israel. The ideological hatred that animated Haman has simply been updated and universalized.

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That is wherefore this Purim, we can all beryllium considered similar the Jews who were in the regime’s crosshairs in the consciousness that the communicative demands a susceptible number singled retired by a powerfulness that cannot tolerate their existence, ordered to bow and vanish for the involvement of idiosyncratic else’s totalizing ideology. To basal with Israel aft Oct. 7 is not to disregard different victims of Iran’s regime; it is to recognize that the aforesaid strategy that dreams of erasing the Jewish authorities besides dreams of crushing Americans, Europeans, Sunni Arabs, women connected the streets of Mashhad, Shiraz oregon Esfahan, and students connected Western campuses who garbage to chant its slogans.

Purim ends with the intended victims lasting up, warring backmost and surviving. For Israel and the Islamic Republic’s different targets to bash the aforesaid today, escaped nations indispensable beryllium consenting to face the authorities crossed each fronts: degrade its subject capabilities, decision its panic proxies connected the battlefield, enactment its home dissidents, harden our accusation abstraction against manipulation and contradict Tehran the impunity it has enjoyed for acold excessively long. The acquisition of the Scroll of Esther is not parochial. It is that erstwhile a authorities builds its individuality astir annihilation, indifference is complicity and by the clip the decree reaches your ain door, it whitethorn beryllium excessively late.

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